Dries Van Noten on a Lifetime of Vogue, and What Comes Subsequent: “I Cherished It, and I Nonetheless Love It”

Roughly 36 hours after Dries Van Noten waved goodbye on the closing of his last-ever runway present, the legendary Belgian dressmaker is sitting in his sunny showroom in Paris. It’s one other Monday morning on the workplace, with chicly dressed workers clacking away at computer systems. Sporting his signature navy jumper with khakis and tan leather-based sneakers, the 66-year-old is brisk and well-rested. “I slept final evening, which was not the case the nights earlier than,” he says with a smile.

As we settle in for a wide-ranging dialogue about his menswear legacy, his ideas in regards to the trend trade, and his future plans, Van Noten begins telling me, nearly by reflex, about how he needed to cut up the footwear assortment that traces the cabinets round us into two elements, one thing to do with their Italian footwear provider. “I’ve to say,” I inform him, “you don’t appear very retired but.”

Van Noten made headlines earlier this 12 months when he introduced his choice to step again from the day-to-day grind of designing 4 runway collections a 12 months. On this career, designers don’t are inclined to know when or tips on how to make a swish exit. However the clear-sighted Van Noten has at all times carried out issues on his personal phrases.

Photographed by Sam Hellmann

His grand finale befell in entrance of 800-plus pals, followers, prospects, admirers, and friends, together with a number of fellow members of the Antwerp Six, the group of Belgian trend designers who graduated from the Antwerp Royal Academy of High-quality Arts in 1981 and proceeded to take the trade by storm. (The crew of longtime pals contains Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Van Saene, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, and Marina Yee. Martin Margiela is commonly thought of the seventh member.)

In traditional Dries trend, the present was full of garments designed to make you essentially the most fascinating particular person within the room, clever in lower and suave in coloration, sample, and texture. However it was not a retrospective of best hits, although the solid included a number of gray-haired former Dries Van Noten mainstays. Backstage after his bow, a clearly overwhelmed Van Noten couldn’t assist however gush in regards to the new supplies (like crunchy recycled polyesters) he juxtaposed with traditional English wools, and in our dialog his eyes glint when he mentions the traditional Japanese printmaking method he utilized for the primary time to create a backyard of superbly muted floral trenches, trousers, and tops. It was a young providing to the followers who’ve made his work part of their every day lives, and a transparent message to the as-yet-unnamed successor who will construct on his legacy. “They must dare, they’ve to maneuver ahead,” he tells me. Following the present and an limitless variety of backstage hugs and selfies, Van Noten danced below disco ball lights till effectively after midnight.

The following section of Dries Van Noten’s life will formally begin when he returns to Antwerp, earlier than embarking on an eight-day trip to the Amalfi Coast together with his associate, Patrick Vangheluwe, and their canine. As he dispenses with the small speak, I can inform that the designer is raring to go house. However I additionally sense that he’s not precisely leaving this all behind. “I nonetheless have plenty of plans, I am nonetheless going to do various things,” he says in his clipped Flemish accent. “The style world and the whole lot, it is my soul, it is my life. So it might be unusual to now shut the doorways fully. So, I will not.”